The City Planning Department will focus on the Sunset's architecturally significant buildings in a report this fall.

The City Planning Department will focus on the Sunset's architecturally significant buildings in a report this fall.

Photo: John King

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The 1500 block of 36th Avenue in San Francisco's Sunset District was developed in 1932 by Oliver Rousseau, whose colorful houses are considered to be among the most desirable in the neighborhood.

The 1500 block of 36th Avenue in San Francisco's Sunset District was developed in 1932 by Oliver Rousseau, whose colorful houses are considered to be among the most desirable in the neighborhood.

Photo: John King

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Sunset District architectural gems rise from fog

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A much different San Francisco neighborhood is the Sunset District, a terrain defined by fog and low-slung single-family homes. But architectural historians are looking that way as well.

This fall, the city Planning Department intends to release a draft of its new Sunset District Historic Resource Survey - an effort focused on 2,800 houses built by tract developers between 1925 and 1950. The survey area is bounded roughly by Kirkham and Santiago streets, 29th Avenue and Sunset Boulevard, and the idea is to get a lay of the land more than seek out jewels.

"We've got a handle on the Victorian era, but when the department gets an application to alter builder homes from this period, we don't have a starting point" to evaluate what if any features should be preserved, said Mary Brown, the planner in charge of the survey.

"We're expecting that most of the buildings won't be architecturally significant, but we're finding small clusters with great designs scattered among the non-remarkable ones," said Brown, who's enjoying her reconnaissance of what some residents fondly call the Outside Lands: "There are wonderful buildings in the Sunset. I really think it's an underrated neighborhood."

Try to erect a new neon sign in San Francisco, and neighbors might rake you over the coals.

Bring one back to life that's been dark for decades, and cheers ring out.

At least that's the case at Geary and Larkin streets in the Tenderloin, where the four-story blade sign at the Hart-land Hotel is putting on a high-wattage show.

"Everyone likes the brightness, and it's the image of old San Francisco," said Randy Shaw of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which provides 137 units of low-income housing inside the Hart-land. "It's such a shame the sign was run down for so long."

This is one of many recent restoration efforts in the Tenderloin, a neighborhood where 33 blocks in 2009 became a national historic district. The designation celebrates an architectural heritage that stands along its often-troubled streets; let's hope the Hartland's glow is a sign of change in more ways than one.

Labor Day has passed, summer's end draws near - and San Francisco's annual Architecture and the City festival is in full swing.

The theme of the ninth annual happening is Design: It's About Time, one of those catchall phrases that takes in everything from preservation to pop-up retail spaces. To offer a flavor of the stew, here are four events that caught my eye:

-- An exhibition of aged postcards of the city's buildings is on display through Oct. 18 at the 130 Sutter St. office of the festival's organizer, the San Francisco chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

-- Same day, three hours later at the AIA, a panel discussion on the role of ad hoc urbanism - parklets, et al - will include landscape architect Walter Hood, general manager Phil Ginsburg of the city's Recreation and Park Department, and the ever-inventive Jane Martin of Shift Design, whose work includes streetscapes and community gardens.